


Bells and Whistles

by bluestbluetoeverblue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Universe, Love Confessions, M/M, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 14:41:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16599866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestbluetoeverblue/pseuds/bluestbluetoeverblue
Summary: In which Dean makes his feelings clear.Inspired by a line in 14x02





	Bells and Whistles

After years of internalizing everything that has happened to him, to his family, Dean finally realizes that he isn’t the problem. Like an epiphany three decades in the making, he finally believes that he deserves to be happy. The fear—of rejection, of shame, of losing everything—is overwhelming, but Dean convinces himself that if he can survive heaven, hell, and everything in between, he can suck it up and do this.

Four weeks of repeating that over and over in his head until one day the fear subsides just long enough. He looks up from the book in front of him to where Cas sits across the table, quietly reading through the lore. His bright eyes flick over the page, his face impossibly still. Dean swallows the lump in his throat and says it.

***

Castiel digests the confession in silence. He can feel Dean’s gaze on him, green orbs burning with panic. Castiel is—there is not really a word to describe this feeling, and putting emotions into words is still a relatively new practice. Joy might be the closest to right. This is everything he has ever wanted to hear Dean say. He has felt it, of course, in the whispers uttered over the years whenever Dean needed help, in the glances and gazes, in the gruffness of Dean’s yelling, even. Their connection has always been, after all, profound. But then. Always the creeping feeling that it could not be real. Dean had always wondered why an angel would save him, but the truth was that Castiel was the one not who could not be felt for in that way, not really.

“Dean…” What could he possibly say? To make him understand, to make him see that he could not really feel that way for him, no matter how desperately Castiel wanted him to. “It is not me you feel like this for. This body, this human body, it isn’t me. And the power, the grace, it is...overwhelming to humans, even if it may seem familiar, we are still too far away.”

***

A punch to the gut. A blade ripping into his chest. Each of Cas’ words is like a bullet. Dean swallows, looks at the table, nods. This was always how it was going to be. The first image that comes to mind is John, silent and disappointed. What did he expect, why would Cas ever see him that way?

“You don’t feel the same. Whatever. Just forget I said anything.” He flips the page, eyes running over the blurred words.

“Dean, no—” Cas says it like he is in pain. Dean looks up. “If there is anything I am certain of, it is how I feel about you. How I have felt since before I knew what love could feel like.”

“Then what?” Dean demands. He is not sure how his voice becomes tinged with anger. Castiel lets out a sigh.

“I am afraid that you care for a sublime version of me that is incompatible with humanity.”

“Cas, that’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”

***

Castiel’s eyes widen. Dean sits across the library table fuming with an angry passion that is all too familiar.

“First of all, I’ve seen you at your lowest. I’ve seen you dead and bleeding and broken, possessed and power-drunk and lost. You never had a halo in my mind, Cas.”

“Dean—” Castiel is not sure what to say in response to that, but Dean does not give him a chance anyway.

“Secondly, I've met Jimmy, and he doesn't have your voice. His eyes were never that blue. It's been you in that body for years, Cas. It was you that I prayed to, you that I've lost and left, you that never stopped giving and trying. I've loved you every second since that warehouse in Illinois, since I rammed a knife into your chest, since you reached into the pit to save me. You keep on saving me. And yeah you're freaking celestial, but I've never loved you more than when you were pumping slushies at a Gas-N-Sip. I love you, Cas, with or without all the bells and whistles.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for indulging me :)
> 
> [Buy me a coffee if you enjoyed it?](https://ko-fi.com/L4L4WBXK#)


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